Borneo-Dayak CRAFTS
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Traditional Life: Death and Funeral Art

What is the concept of "leaving this world"?

At death, the mana is released from the body and dissolves into the cosmos, and this is no source of worry to the living - indeed many groups do not even consider it, But a new spirit appears to roam around in this world, a threat the humans are eager to get rid of, especially when it results from a violent death. Death disturbs the cosmic order and creates a critical situation that only ritual resolves. When a forest nomad dies, the band sometimes simply strikes camp and leaves the corpse.

Some Dusun and - in the past - some Iban abandonded or destroyed the deceased's dwelling. For most groups, however, the spirit ultimately reaches its resting place, the village of the dead, and they make sure it does.

The village of the dead, a replica of this world, is located in the skies or on top of sacred mountains like the Lumut in the Southeast, the Kinibalu in Sabah, or the Tilung on the Kapuas. There the spirit lives much like a human.

For the journey, the family leaves worldly goods at the burial place for it to take along. But the path to this village is difficult and tricky. So before burial and in a long poetic chant to the spirit, the priest describes the journey so that it arrives safely. When the spirit reaches there, the living perform a sacrifice and symbolically sever all relations with the dead. Human life resumes normally and the cosmos balance.

Art in traditional life: People at home, Household arts and crafts, Clothes and textiles, Personal adornment, The wider world, The fields, River and forest, Trade, War, headhunting, and sacrifice, Traditional religion, Of Gods and men, Life and ritual, Sickness and shamanism, Death and funeral art, Primary funerals, Secondary funerals, The living and the death.